DMb | Dance Music blog & Podcast

AudioJelly is celelbrating their 5th Anniversary this year and to celebrate they are giving away 50 free tracks when you make a minimal purchase. I’ve used AudioJelly’s website from time to time when I’m looking for certain tracks that just don’t seem to make it onto Beatport. They have a nice site and an extensive selection of Trance. Because I live in the US, it tends to be cheaper to just go with a company in the US but sometimes you just gotta shell out to that track you really need. But this seems like a pretty good promotion.

From AudioJelly:

To mark the 5th anniversary of their dance music download launch, www.audiojelly.com is now offering a new 50 free downloads special.

If you visit the promotions page www.audiojelly.com/promo.cfm, you see that users only need spend £5, to enable the receipt of the 50 track voucher in their account. The tracks are all from one imprint each selected by the labels themselves. The majority are tracks released within the past 12 months.

Labels participating include Armada Music, Toolroom Records, Baroque, Coldharbour, Stoney Boy Music, Mondo, Wildchild, Discover, Boz Boz and Aurium.

Audiojelly was founded in 2004 by songwriters and producers Ricky Simmonds and Stephen Jones. Together, they are the driving force behind major acts such as Lustral, The Space Brothers, Chakra, The Realm, Oxygen, Kaleidoscope and Ascension.

Xone delivers a top of the line DJ controller to put all others to shame. Check it out:

After weeks of speculation and buzz around the industry, Allen & Heath and Serato Audio Research have announced the launch of the Xone: DX, a new Plug’n'Play DJ controller, the result of close collaboration between the two companies. The DX, another development in Allen & Heath’s Xone: D range of controllers, is a 20-channel USB soundcard and features total integration of the brand new 4-deck Serato ITCH software.

Boasting the ability to send up to 168 individual MIDI control messages, a 20-channel 96kHz/24-bit USB 2.0 soundcard, two dual layer deck simulators, and RIAA/phono inputs for external decks, as well as the central 4 channel mixer section which directly manipulates the DSP mixing within the computer, the Xone: DX is the most versatile, high specification professional DJ controller to date. A full version of the new Serato ITCH software is supplied with the DX, providing unique 4-deck control, and a comprehensive set of digital DJ FX, as well as looping and time-stretching.

“Serato has always been an admirer of Allen & Heath’s DJ hardware and we’ve watched the development of the Xone: D series of controllers with keen interest. In our opinion, Allen & Heath design some of the best music production software controllers in the professional field,” explains Serato MD, Steve West. “Rather than a partnership to simply bundle our products, we wanted to collaborate with A&H at the drawing board stage, and design a product that would fully manipulate the new version of ITCH.”

The Xone: DX is also fully compatible with other leading DJ software brands, and has Allen & Heath’s customary pro modular design build and high quality components. It also has bi-colour LED feedback layer assignment, UV light sensitive legend, mix outputs on RCA and balanced XLR, a separate booth output, and measures 50mm deep to fit conveniently in a laptop bag.

“Ever since we launched the MIDI-enabled Xone:92 in 2003, followed by the multi-media Xone:3D in 2005, we have strived to design controllers that would fulfil a digital DJ’s wish list. The Xone: DX is the next step in this journey, with a versatile and wide-ranging set of features in a compact package,” comments Xone designer, Andy Rigby-Jones.

Suggested retail price is £999 shipping in November 2009.

More info at Xone Website

Beatportal Interview:

DJs were confined to the turntable for a quarter of a century. They were slaves to the music. Rhythmically matching two records together was all they could do to help people dance. Then technology set them free.

CD players with loop functionality, FX units, and sophisticated mixers all helped DJs to seize control of the music in the 1990s. Software was the next phase and it is changing the very meaning of the word ‘DJ’.

Dutch producer and DJ Joris Voorn has embraced technology. His ‘Balance 14’ mix CD, released in February, saw Voorn mix over 100 tracks across two CDs, with each different track a layered construction of three or four different songs.

With mixing in parts (or molecular mixing) becoming more and more common, Beatportal decided to meet Joris Voorn to find out his opinion about what is the definition of a DJ today.
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I recently heard about TechnoBox from AudioRealism for the iPhone and iPod Touch, and already being a fan of thier Bassline VST instrument I had to check it out. $10 for this app is a steal when compared to the price of a VST instrument or any music creation software for that matter. Compared to the price of most iPhone apps it is on the higher side but it’s well worth it. Basically TechnoBox is similar to the old Rebirth program by Propellerheads but better sounding. I definitely see someone using this app in a live set, but you would have to deal with manually syncing it up. Definitely worth a look.

From the AudioRealism website:

TechnoBox is your virtual techno studio on the go for iPhone / iPod touch featuring stunningly accurate emulations of three classic boxes: The legendary 303 bass line machine together with the smooth 808 and punchy 909 drum machines. technoBox has easy to use sequencing capabilities which lets you tie together patterns, or use it live by improvising pattern switches on the fly!

Featuring the same high quality audio engine as ABL2 which was painstakingly optimized to be able to run on mobile devices. For the uninitiated our audio engine has aliasing free oscillators and full range non-linear filters.

The drum section features 11 parts with 808 or 909 sounds (for a total of 22 sounds) with variable amount of shuffle per pattern.

technoBox comes with a session manager which allows you to load/save sessions in realtime without stopping the internal sequencer — great for saving realtime improvised patterns without interrupting the audio stream.

TechnoBox Website

At the National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM) expo, Akai showed the APC40 MIDI control surface it has developed in conjunction with Ableton, making it the first such device to be ready to run out of the box with the Ableton Live music editing software. As there is no need to load drivers, users simply plug in their notebooks via a USB port and can begin mixing or otherwise modifying their music using Ableton Live. The APC40 is being touted as the simplest, most direct hardware interface with the popular software, yet still allows advanced users to assign the board’s 40 buttons, knobs and fader controls to any virtual controls in the software.

Each control on the APC40 lights up in a different color to give users an instant indication of clip state. Likewise, the 16 knobs are lined by a ring of LED rings that perform the same functions. Akai points out the APC40 makes controlling music at live events much quicker and easier, taking the connected source, most often a notebook or desktop PC or Mac, out of the equation.

Numark has announced at NAMM that it’s displaying Stealth Control, a professional DJ controller that comes with Native Instruments Traktor LE and MixMeister Fusion Live software. With a design based around Numark’s previous control devices, it provides the same two decks and a mixer layout that allows users to jog, scrub, or scratch. Stealth Control sends MIDI information to control the software and can be used with any application that supports MIDI. A USB cable is used to connect the controller to the computer.

Traktor LE 3 is a dual-deck DJ application that provides features such as auto-sync, beat-accurate loops, and a variety of effects, while Mix Meister Fusion delivers timeline-based mixing capabilities. Stealth Control is available now and has been priced by the company at $400 with an estimated street price of $300.

While software like Serato is very stripped down, it allows a DJ to quickly and easily perform his/her primary task – beatmatching and mixing music. The first time ever using Serato I quickly figured out how to use it with no instructions. The first time I looked at the user interface for Torq it made me want to cry. This interface is easily the most hideous looking thing I have seen in DJ Software market hands down! Even if M-Audio sent me a free copy I wouldn’t install this on my computer. I’m only reporting this new version of the software for those of you that do use it. I would love to hear some first hand comments about how great this software is so I can learn not to judge the software by the GUI, but I doubt I will hear any. Please let us know if you use this.

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The Otus from Eks is another new DJ Controller to enter the game, but this one definitely has some features I’d like to try out in person if we can get a test unit in here. A few features that really stand out to me are the ability to control 2 decks with just the one controller and the touch sensitive pitch ribbon. This sleek new DJ controller can be had for 649.00 € via the Eks Website.

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Another cool instructable for turning an old hard drive into a rotary controller that can then be mapped to MIDI to contol some DJ software or some other bit of virtual gear. If anyone technically gifted enough to build one of these does so please post some photos and let us know how it works out.

Full instructions here.

Here’s a nice bit of kit to take along with you on your next flight when you’ve just got to finish that next remix on the go. :)

Snip snip…

Now that the laptop has become the new desktop it’s tempting to do everything on the go. But try composing or editing music while enjoying a latte at Starbucks and you’ll find yourself seriously lacking in the tactile input department. There’s a reason why musicians generally need racks of equipment at their disposal… you just cant play music so well with a keyboard and mouse. The new Korg Nano Digital Music Controllers aim to remedy this musical dilemma by providing three different portable USB versions of common musical input devices that fit perfectly with your laptop. The nanoKEY gives you a mini velocity sensitive keyboard. The nanoPAD provides you with velocity sensitive drum-pads and a Kaossilator style x-y control pad while the nanoKONTROL gives you nine faders, nine knobs and eighteen switches for your mixing pleasure.

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